"After following Bob Hope and Dean Martin on The Tonight Show, Gobel famously quipped to Johnny Carson, 'Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?'" - George Gobel (quoted from Wikipedia).
If you are a Lutheran, did you ever get that feeling from being Lutheran? You naturally don't feel comfortable being lumped together with Roman Catholics. And you really don't like it when people consider you a Protestant, either.
I was taking a survey, and the following question came up:
"What best describes your religion?
-Roman Catholic
-Culturally Jewish Only
-Protestant
-Muslim
-Orthodox Christian
-Hindu
-Other, Christian
-Buddhist
-Orthodox Jewish
-Secular, no religion
-Conservative Jewish
-No religion but spiritual
-Reform Jewish
-Other"
I ended up putting Other, Christian. What should I have picked?
All the really great words are already taken, like catholic and orthodox. So we're stuck being named after a person. That ain't right, is it? I think we were the original evangelicals, although that name has been usurped also and now has a negative connotation.
How about we declare ourselves Orthodox Catholic?
Can someone please come up with a name that fits?
It's funny you should mention this topic. I also choose Other because I don't feel comfortable with the other choices. I've come to terms with the fact that if I were to announce to the world that I was a confessional Lutheran, people's eyes would glaze over as I attempted an explanation.
ReplyDeleteEvangelical Reformed Catholic Orthodox Lutheran. (properly defined, of course). :)
ReplyDeleteNot only are we "other, Christian," but we are "other, Lutheran." I realized that afresh tonight when my Catholic sister-in-law mentioned that she would be permitted to take communion at her co-worker's Lutheran church. Must be ELCA or some other non-confessional Lutheran stripe.
ReplyDeleteTK!
ReplyDeleteGood, I feel like I did the right thing, then. Although I wanted to put orthodox, I just knew they meant Eastern Orthodox instead.
Dan@NR!
We're ERCOL! But if we called ourselves that, then everyone would associate us with Urkel.
So, how about ERCOL-PD!
Barb!
To paraphrase one of your commenters, why do we have to label everything? Well, this is why.